The Warlord and the Bard

by Eric Alan Westfall

  The even more noticeable imperial distance that will begin tomorrow once Niallan has successfully completed his unknown-to-him mission, accompanied by a demand from a Palace representative for the return of an important Imperial treasure (which has not seen the light of day since the tasteless fool presented it to Father, except for occasional rotating museum displays of the Crown jewels), should give him and his family a clue that matters have changed yet again. Of course the Crown will offer to compensate him for the loss of the gift that should never have been given. I guess the whore will have to accept cash in parting after all.

  It is time to move on. If I cannot have a quick fuck with a servitor, to replace the several lengthy ones Niallan has deprived me of, perhaps it is time for new...prey. Although the odds are against finding what I want in this crowd. But still.... Niallan will be permanently done sometime tomorrow, so if I am lucky, a pre-emptive, post-Niallan celebratory fuck might be arranged for later tonight. I will simply have to be subtle.

  I can do subtle.

  Perhaps.

  I cross to the top of the stairs, and slowly walk down them, then out into the crowd, with more than ample space not so miraculously being provided for me. A few more paces and I am near the top tier surrounding the enormous, circular, sunken ballroom floor, surveying the dancers and spectators on the eight tiers. I contemplate how best to enjoy myself, especially if I cannot find the right man to use later. I am, after all, being sent away again for the good of the Kingdom and Empire. Why not enjoy myself, or at least create that appearance? I can always apologize to...my aunt...later if this happens, by merest chance and certainly not of my volition, to become another “DarkFire party.”

  Jerril

  Who is this man? A moment or two ago, when he straightened up, and had another drink or four, he...became...someone else. A warrior in a military uniform, though his clothes didn’t change. It was the Warlord who started toward the stairs, then stopped and became someone else. He is the Heir Presumptive now, I think. I have seen that walk before, though in a ducal heir, and a viscount’s second son. A prowling walk through a party, a predator looking for prey. Sexual prey.

  Goddess! How can they not notice? Or does fear blunt their senses that much?

  A dangerous man who is all the more dangerous for having been drinking for hours. A man to definitely stay away from.

  Even so, I am going to...wander...in his direction. I want to see him clearly, closely. Not close enough to touch even by accident, but enough to look at him, to see the way his body speaks when he is at rest, though I think he is never truly at rest, compared to what it has to say when he is in motion. With luck, I might hear him. But I will not be close enough to draw his attention.

  I want to know what kind of a man will invite a lover to a major social event; bestow an ostentatious and gloriously gaudy gift on that man when he makes an entrance and have the tale spread in an instant, then go on the hunt for someone else to fuck. Probably here, in some closet or storeroom. Or perhaps just in a shadow he can convince himself is deep and dark enough, and out of the way enough, that he might not get caught. Or does he hope to get caught? A planned humiliation for himself? For his family? Or his Family?

  So I will observe from the safety of the crowd around him. And if he notices me at all, then once he knows who I am, and my performance and introduction will ensure that he does, he will simply remember me, if at all, as that much shorter commoner with red hair that he walked by a while ago.

  I start toward him.

  What the Hells am I thinking?

  What in the Hells am I doing?

  DarkFire

  The monitor is remarkably quiet during all this planning. Perhaps doing its own planning, as in determining when and how hard to yank my chain if I take any steps to follow through with anything other than the plan. But at least if that happens I will only be sprawled inelegantly on my ass inside my own head, and not publicly.

  Each of the eight tiers is deep enough for two or three people to stand without crowding, and high enough that everyone on each tier has a reasonably clear view of the dance floor. I see one man make the awkward jump down to the next tier, rather than weave through the tier crowd to one of the four sets of stairs that provide access to the dance floor. I complete the survey. Definitely no fodder for Father-shocking in this group. I’ll have to look elsewhere. The Goddess knows there are enough men here that there is at least a possibility I will find someone.

  Perhaps even the flame-haired man by the pillar. Redheads have always been good fucks for me. But that will require the effort of looking specifically for him.

  I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have someone else take the initiative, instead of me doing all the work. Not the type of initiative that happens when I am wearing my ordinary warrior persona, prowling through the taverns and brothels of Illoraen-the-City, or any of the similar parts of the cities across the Empire. Those men want nothing more than my cock, and they each know that using their holes, one or both or more than once in each, is all the use I have for them. A cock for a hole; a fair trade.

  Tonight, though, any initiative from a man in full view of this many members of the High Houses and Families will be for the sake of advantage, and nothing more. And that is now even less likely with the display I made of myself over Niallan.

  So I will do the work. I will find myself a man who is willing to be fucked in both his holes at least once in the early morning hours. A man willing to leave the ball quietly and early so there is no link between us that the traitors might notice, other than a passing conversation. A man willing to wait in the tiny room above a disgusting bar that I keep for anonymous sex, until I have safely made my grand departure with the fawning Niallan in tow, until I can get away from Niallan in a way that will leave no one realizing we are not together the rest of this night.

  Yes, a quick and dirty fuck. Just to ease the tension.

  This as-yet-undiscovered man will of course be a discreet man, willing to do all this for no reward other than the satisfaction of knowing he has been used by...whatever title gets him the hardest. Crown Prince? Heir Presumptive? Warlord? Voice of the Sword? A man who understands that that will be the only reward, who understands all that will happen to him if he ever speaks to anyone about what we do.

  A fine plan.

  I drink the dregs in the goblet.

  Another servitor appears and pours, possibly a different wine, fortunately before I have been reduced to licking the goblet for whatever alcoholic moisture remains. My palate is too dulled to pay attention to the change. It has forgotten what taste is like, which is, after all, part of the point of this exercise. Forgetting. Blurring. Getting even more drunk, hopefully close to the precipice drunk, so that I can at least tolerate the thought of having to once more appear to care for fucking Niallan as we leave the ball together.

  A quick gulp. Half the goblet gone, I look around, but only as far as the eyes can see, since I don’t turn my head.

  Ha. My “fine” plan for late night sex is as likely to work as my walking through the White Palace in the daylight carrying a torch, searching for an honest man, and finding only members of the nobility, or bureaucrats who are, whether instinctively or by careful training, as dishonest as the members of the Houses and Families.

  Damning Niallan yet again is an exercise in futility. But I do so in the hope that the Goddess for once is listening and will act.

  There is no bolt of Her lightning here in the ballroom, carefully incinerating Niallan, and only Niallan.

  Obviously, She is still ignoring me. After a lifetime’s indifference, I expect nothing more. There could hardly be anything less.

  There must be such a man here. A man willing to be used and discarded and not talk. A paragon among fuckable men, since I do have some standards about who I fuck. Although admittedly not many, and those standards are not very high. There have been times when mere willingness, no matter how reluctant, has been enough. I have only to find
this paragon among men.

  I finish the wine. Hold the goblet out. Not surprisingly, a servitor promptly takes it away, then moves quickly away himself.

  I begin to move. The psychological barrier that is the persona of the Heir Presumptive narrows from a circle a foot or two wide to an invisible but somehow felt warn-away that hovers just above my skin.

  But after only a few steps I stop. This is pointless. Two men whose names I do not know, will never know, have made it so.

  The first was the one who looked back at me with eyes that said, “I do not like having sex with men, much less getting fucked, but for what I’ll get if I let you do it, your Highness, I will.” The second was the one who licked his lips with the surety of a cock sucking expert, and casually passed his hand over his groin, letting it barely brush his cock. One not eager and one far too eager, but neither has the look of a man who will not expect to gain something from an encounter with me. If nothing else, the coins he can get from a paid linker to tell his story.

  Seventh...Eighth...Ninth Hells!

  I give up. There will be no DarkFire party tonight. There will be no appointment for a fuck later. I will not even sneak out of the Palace and go down to the docks, down to the Kinthar, and use its version of my Aunt’s maze in that very dark back room. A maze with no spells except that of lust; a maze populated by silent men, some naked, some not, each one seeking the right hole to use, the right cock to be used by, or as the night goes on and desperation sets in, any cock, any hole at all. I will just ignore the desperation of my cock for release until I can at least use my hand.

  Damn Niallan. Again, and yet again.

  I briefly hope, for the barest fraction of a second, that the Goddess, disdaining lightning, has opted for making him slowly fade from sight with no one at all noticing. Despite what that would do to my fucking plan.

  She has not. A passing whisper of contempt in the word “common”—“commoner?”—tells me Niallan is still somewhere here, howling red, medallion and all. Too bad he isn’t that other red, whoever he might be.

  Hells, I will just grant Niallan a reprieve, actually take him back to my rooms instead of pretending, for the traitors’ sake, that I have done so. He will make his holes available, will revel in doing so after the earlier storms, and will go on believing, until that shattering moment sometime tomorrow, that things have gone back to the way they were. Before he tried to trap me, to rape my mind if not my body. Noticeably leaving with him will be no greater scandal than anything else that has already occurred tonight.

  In the morning he will be gone. Gone to deliver my message to the man who used him. The other man who used him.

  The message he delivers will be an extremely final message since no matter how drunk out, or in, it is tonight, I am not so far gone I will forget what was tried. I lied to Niallan. It is what rulers, and eventual rulers, are trained to do from almost-birth so that within a few years they—we—do it flawlessly.

  Imperial Security and the White Guard already have their orders. Niallan will be quietly followed, those followers so well warded no one observing Niallan for the purpose of identifying followers, will even be aware he has followers.

  The man, Niallan’s fucking friend, will be questioned and not allowed to die quickly. Whether he is the prime traitor or only a tool himself, the complexities of the prophecy mean they must have had plans for more that just Niallan’s vows of love.

  “One. Then the other.” Did they mean for Niallan and one of them to use me in my bespelled, compliant state, or add more men to the roster of rape, as Jhadrek had done. Did they....

  The monitor ruthlessly cuts off that line of thought. I take two slow breaths, my expression showing me to be not quite as drunk as I actually am, and still signaling a profound lack of interest in being approached.

  I go on walking.

  They will be found, these men, these women, who dared to try to rape my mind, my soul, my body. They will be made to understand that they will, without question, die once they have been made to answer all that Imperial Security asks, and nothing will change even if they are so terrified they volunteer what we want to know. The only thing their level of cooperation will determine is whether the inevitable death will be quick and painless, or something far different—right up to the ultimate pain of the Sword’s destruction of their souls, denying them the Goddess’ gift of rebirth.

  The peripheral traitors, in or out of the prime traitors’ Houses and Families, will be punished swiftly and for the most part privately. It is not necessary to kill every member of House or Family in order to destroy either or both. Just take away everything in a way that humiliates them but does not involve the Crown, driving them to their own deaths.

  But I will keep my word. Niallan will not be punished. Well, except for the loss of status and access to the upper ranks of society when it is known he no longer has access to me.

  I pause. Look again, this time making sure I am seen to be looking. Find him.

  Niallan is nearly a third of the way around the ballroom and two tiers down towards the dance floor. I start in his direction, staying on the main floor. We are going to leave, and now. Exit stage left: a prince in love who cannot bear to be separated from his new beloved.

  I hope the schemers are paying attention. All the drama of this imminent departure should not be wasted.

  It is only a moment later, as I move through the crowd that dances the fine line between an ostentatious getting out of my way so that they will be, at least briefly, noticed, and a polite giving way so they will not, that I feel a hand caress my cock and balls, squeeze lightly and let go. I am three steps beyond the touch before that fact catches up with my wine-dulled mind. I stop abruptly.

  Jerril

  Goddess grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

  A very good prayer for just now. An excellent prayer. The best of all possible prayers.

  I pray it again.

  Serenity. I will work on the serenity that comes with accepting that I cannot change the fact I just touched him. Alright, that wasn’t just a touch, that was a full-on, since-you’re-looking-for-someone-to fuck-how-about-me-I’m-really-good grope.

  Goddess grant me the courage to change the things I can. Such as my position. Such as moving away through the crowd instead of standing still like an idiot.

  And the wisdom...the wisdom to what? Ah. The wisdom to know when to run. Like now. Get my instruments, get back to the White Palace, pack a single bag with the barest necessities, and then busk my way far, far, away, to the northernmost tip of the Empire, perhaps into the star wilderness beyond. And stay there.

  DarkFire

  I smile. It is a very, very malicious smile, and it is only in my mind. But it leaks. To the one person capable of sensing it.

  # ‘Fire? # My eyes are captured by the dismayed eyes of my older sister, directly across from me, one tier down.

  # Yes, i’Kiriana? #

  The internal smile broadens as she winces—not visibly, naturally. She knows the formality of her full name instead of the “Kiri” I have used all of our lives, means I am in no mood to listen. She tries anyway.

  # ‘Fire. Listen to me. Not another DarkFire party. # What concern. Has Father given her another talking-to about her troubling brother? Because that is not her older twin to younger-by-five-minutes twin tone. That is her nearly full-on Crown Princess and Heir tone, the full version of which makes underlings from commoners to planetary dukes to regional viceroys beg to be allowed to obey her slightest whim. Except my sister never has whims. Just plans.

  I love her. With all the little love I am capable of these days, which is to say, not much at all. But she has forgotten that my time of paying attention to, my time of obeying, my still much-loved sister, is just over forty years in the past. Before.

  # Why not? It’s been far too long since this crowd had something new about me to serve as gossip-fodder. Niallan is old news, and after tonight, no news at all. #

>   A wordless “what?” and “why?” She is not speaking of Niallan, for whom she has only contempt.

  # He touched me. A man standing about three paces behind me at the moment. So what shall it be? A shocking display of rudeness and imperial arrogance? # My thoughts tremble across the link. # A duel? Or shall I simply beat him to.... #

  # ‘Fire, no! #

  # No one touches me without my permission, i’Kiriana. No one. #

  I pause and a thought slides upward from the concealing depths, with all the ease and accuracy of an assassin’s death knife slicing through flesh and into a heart. No one since that Goddess damned Jhadrek grabbed my....

  Goddess, no!

  I cut the link before her Gift senses the emotion, especially the pain that goes with that thought. Before she offers me sisterly sympathy and caring. I do not do well with sympathy and caring, sisterly or otherwise, so avoiding giving anyone the opportunity to inflict either on me is best. Unfortunately, the inattention that allowed that particular thought to break free of confinement, to become for just the tiniest increment of time, a complete recall of the start of that day, has launched a disaster.

  Goddess damn my drunken soul-less self to the Ninth Hell.

  The Rage has been more active this past year and more. Only the slightest fragment of a memory of that day is enough to set it off. This memory was more than a fragment. I did not simply observe, I was back there again, experiencing, at the accelerated rate possible in dreams and memories, all the starting moments of my arrival at my aunt’s palace. I was there to visit her, but really to see Jhadrek, the man who had been so kind, so attentive, to the fucking crippled prince everyone else disdained. The horror was not in the innocence of those moments, but the knowledge, even as I participated in the abbreviated recollection, of all that was to happen the rest of that day.